Audio Commentaries

Nat Raha reads 'Love is the Message', a text commissioned by The Common Guild in response to Sharon Hayes' exhibition 'Ricerche' at 5 Florence Street in Autumn 2021.

Commentary / Love is the Message by Nat Raha

Writer and researcher Priya Jay responds to Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, ‘May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth: Only sounds that tremble through us’ (2020–2022), in this newly commissioned Commentary –
 
"Together, there is a conspiracy to breathe. Tremble rises under the skin and they move in a way that is not dance but eruption. And so goes the enchantment. THOSE WHO CHANT DO NOT DIE."
 
Abbas and Abou-Rahme's multi-channel sound and moving image installation was presented at Florence Street by The Common Guild earlier this year.

Commentary / Priya Jay

Writer and programmer Caitlin Merrett King responds to Nicole Wermer's 2024 exhibition 'Day Care' with 'The Golden Z' .

'Day Care', Wermers' most substantial institutional UK presentation to date, took place in The Common Guild's temporary premises at 60 York Street, generating discourse on overlooked labour hierarchies, corporate structures and the politics of urban space.

"The building was so positioned that from the roof, whilst enjoying a £1 beer and a scrounged tab, you could see the backs and innards of the surrounding buildings: air conditioning shafts sputtered and hummed, abseiling window cleaners wiped away grey suds from tinted glass exteriors. Seagulls making their nests on precarious ledges dropped twigs and grit and faeces onto huddled financial district workers gulping up quick cigarettes on the pavement below."

Commentary / Caitlin Merrett King

Following Lawrence Abu Hamdan's presentation of 'Live Audio Essays' as part of Glasgow International in June 2024, artist and writer Neil Clements responds to this suite of performances. Addressing Abu Hamdan's spatial approach to sound, Clements considers the architecture we inhabit and the mechanics of remembering.

"Is it possible for an artwork to address a political topic with such directness, such efficacy, that it ceases to be an artwork altogether? This is a question that the multifarious activities of Lawrence Abu Hamdan would appear to pose, crossing as they do the boundaries dividing social commentary, public advocacy and criminal investigation."

Commentary / Neil Clements

Visual Arts: Projects / Events / Exhibitions